As Jim pointed out, my blog has been pretty quiet. Between holidays and various traveling necessities I’ve been slow to post. Fortunately, however, I have been getting time in with my camera! Let’s see if I can catch up…
Back in October, I had to make an international trip for work. It was a rare one – one where things pan out just right. I didn’t ask for the better part of a week of down time in Europe on someone else’s dime, it just turned out that way. My first stop was western Germany. I stayed in Trier and managed to find a few interesting things to photograph. There were, frankly, many more subjects that I missed but due to work obligations I wasn’t able to revisit sites at better times of day for light.
As I wandered around Trier, I found these windows. My GPS dongle for the camera is incredibly inconvenient and fragile; it wasn’t plugged in. If it were, I’d be able to say what building this was as I seem to remember that it was a government building of some sort. Three things stick out here and I like them all so much that I’m disappointed I couldn’t do anything more with this photo. The reflection of the sky is vivid, the single window is open (always interesting to me), and the trim and shape of the windows is actually painted. It was in a tight area so the perspective is off. A tilt-shift lens may have helped some but there is a building between me and this one just out of the frame on the right. A strait on shot would’ve been nice but the geometry of the situation was just a bit funny. Still this photo is interesting to me – I decided to keep the other windows in the shot to keep some perspective. It’s interesting how these are so much more reflective than their upstairs neighbors.
This shot is of the Basilica of Constantine. Apparently the Roman Emperor built this between 300 and 310 AD so it’s been around a while. This is not near as pretty of a shot as you can get at night with a clear sky and the lights in the windows. Nonetheless, here is my unusual take on this historic building. The bike gives the building a sense of scale which is nice. I liked the shadows and the geometric nature of the scene. Quite a bit of manual shifting had to happen. There’s an argument to be made that it still needs some tweaking. A tilt-shift would’ve definitely come in handy here.
I don’t typically like texture photos. Occasionally I’ll take them to (nearly always) mark them as “rejected” in Darktable during culling. This one however made the cut so I figured I’d put it in. As noted by Constantine’s Basilica in the previous picture, these buildings have been around for quite a while. Somehow, these little plants have made their way out of the old brick and make an interesting scene. The geometry of the brick contrasts nicely with the organic shapes of the little fern-looking plants.
The contrast in this photo, I think, really makes it work. There are multiple facets of it. The rows of grapes behind this gate give nice angular contrast to the slats on the gate (which run parallel to the brick). The texture of the slats contrasts nicely with the brick, the style of the gate contrasts with the style of the brick, and the color of the gate and brick contrast wonderfully with the green grape vines in the background. If I had taken a step or two to the right, the tree might have been better placed but overall I enjoy this photo. I’m glad I saw it and that there was a break in traffic long enough for me to take this.
My last feature for this post is of this little cottage. As I was walking back from a morning stroll through the grapes, there seemed to be a little walking path off to the left. A quick reference of the map showed that it led back to the hotel so I ventured a bit. The path seemed to be the primary entrance to many tiny homes. My coworker and I couldn’t quite determine if these homes were lived in or not but the whole walk was incredibly picturesque. This little scene caught my eye. I think it’s a peaceful photo with the feeling of some neglect to this house. I used my new 85mm for this shot. As sharp as it is, I wish I had used a smaller aperture to get the purple flowers in focus. That being said, I really like how the foreground foliage is out of focus. It makes this cottage seem like it’s more in the woods than it was.
Thanks for reading. I’ll try and keep up better this year. One of my favorite shots I’ve ever taken will probably make an appearance next post – whenever that may be. Happy New Year!